Arabnet Arabnet

Ubisoft recently launched CSI: Hidden Crimes™; a point and click mystery adventure game available for free in the App Store and the Play Store for both smartphones and tablets. It was fully developed by Ubisoft Abu Dhabi and represents the first game to come out of the studio based in Twofour54. Fans of the series will also be thrilled to know that Jack Gutowitz, an official writer of the CBS TV Show, was involved in the project since the beginning and came to Abu Dhabi a few times to work with the team on site. Slightly peculiar though is the fact that the game is available in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian and Korean, but not in Arabic.

The game is set in Las Vegas, and you’re an investigator whose job is to uncover crime and bring criminals to justice. To do that you’ll need to find clues and analyze evidence. During the game’s tutorial: you will be marshaled by the night shift supervisor at the Las Vegas Crime Lab D.B Russell - old timers will remember the actor Ted Danson from the old comedy series Cheers and Becker. He’ll take you to the crime scene where you will collect objects as evidence, nothing more than a simple point and click routine. This however will get you experience points and stars that will come in handy later. In return this will consume energy which automatically replenishes over time. You’ll take the body for an autopsy and the evidence for analysis.

Autopsy won’t take time in the tutorial, but in a later stage I had to wait 20 minutes for the results. The good news is you can close the game and a notification will inform you that the time has passed or get an instant autopsy in exchange for cash.

Each piece of evidence will cost you a star to analyze. If you don’t have enough stars, you’ll be instructed to go back to the scene and collect more evidence. My advice is: collect as much evidence as possible to earn more stars, even though it might not be relevant to the crime you’re investigating. Evidence is generated randomly so sometimes you’ll be picking up objects you collected already. The other way to get a star would be to use the sharing features, but if you don’t want to pester your friends you’re pretty much stuck in this routine. You’ll need stars to unlock additional crimes scenes as well.

Autopsy and evidence analysis will give you info on the suspect. Male, blond, has scratches on his face, wears an orange vest, etc. Once you've finished your objectives (autopsies + analysis), you’ll be presented with a number of suspects and it’ll be up to you to identify the culprit based on the info you've got on the assailant.

Overall the game does capture the mood well. The elements from the show are reproduced accurately and the game play and mood, sound effects and music, render it quite immersive and gives it an authentic vibe. Narration would have made it significantly more engaging but that’s just my opinion. Yet, at times, i couldn't shake off the feeling that i was being dragged along a script. It is a point and click and game play does feel very linear and few decisions are requires on your part. But you'd better watch out, as with any episode, the unpredictable can always happen.

CSI: Hidden Crimes™ is available now to download for free. Eight episodes are available at launch, with many more to be unlocked. The game also has the option of playing with friends via Facebook Connect.